Dad brought home this sandbag type thing (sort of like a small pillow filled with sand or something). It’s about the size of a telephone, and it’s meant to be a “back warmer”. You stick it in the microwave for two minutes (that’s the weird bit…) and it warms up and stays warm for an hour or so. Good for those long nights at the computer when you get cold feet and hands doing crazy computing assignments like this.

Schyler is too wrapped up in his political parties agenda to realize when he stops making sense. You have to wonder if he even has original thoughts of his own, or if someone is really pulling his strings because humans don’t think like puppets. :)

The gun culture on America is entrenched within our society. By giving up guns we will not be giving up other freedoms. We will be giving up guns. There is no domino effect unless you’re paranoid. There is no chinese water torture unless you are closed minded.

America is under seige by interest groups such as the bad-willed NRA. To have true freedom we must shed light on the shadows.

Schyler only creates more shadows then tosses them on top of the shadows that are already there.

This only makes it harder to find the truth under such a huge blanket of shadows.

Getting a bit personal, but Schyler does seem to have a bit of a one-track mind. He wouldn’t sacrifice his daughter’s safety for her freedom? Hey – introducing gun control isn’t exactly implementing Fascist rule in the US. Besides, the right to bear arms doesn’t impact upon the freedom of children as much as it does on the safety of them.

The bloody French are suing their weather forecasting service cos they failed to predict a hailstorm. Ah huh. Sydney had the largest hailstorm since white settlement (1788) a fortnight ago. Hailstones as big as tennis balls! Went to uni and there were smashed windows on various buildings. A few of my friends’ houses were pretty badly damaged, and as for cars… Millions and millions of dollars worth of damage and yet, no attempt has been made by anyone to sue the weather bureau. But the French have.

We lasted only about 20 days… but it was fun while it lasted. I don’t want to have to deal with the administrators and shit… This site was taking too much time. I told too much about myself. There was no reward. Sure, getting like 90 hits a day was funky, but it’s not worth my time. Everyone else is on the E/N scene anyway.

I’m starting to find the whole E/N thing boring… like I give two shits what opinions they have. It hit me when it took like 20 mins of my life to go thru all the good E/N sites. Then it takes me 20 mins to a half hour to get all the updates up. Then another 10 mins to re-check the sites before I go to bed.

I don’t have an hour every day to waste on this shit…

So if you want to continue to see the antics of Juseck, go visit him on Troz. Maybe he’ll create a site of his own somewhere. It just won’t be here.

So 20 days, and about 1200 unique hits. Not bad. On a previous site, after a year and a half, I got over 300,000 hits. At my peak I got 2000 a day. Since there’s so many E/N sites, we’re all getting less hits because our audience has so much to look at, and our audience just picks what they think is the best. So the influx of all these E/N sites is bad. My closing is good. Or something.

Later, fellas. It was fun.

Hmmmm. So… G stopped cos he found writing a journal boring, too time consuming and without reward. And the fact that there are too many E/N sites. I guess that’s a very valid reason for quitting. When you lose the enjoyment (was there any to begin with?) that’s the time to stop. If it feels like it’s taking over your life (and it shouldn’t be, really) that’s not a good sign. Another thing – you shouldn’t feel obligated to view other E/N sites… if I don’t have time, I’ll say screw it and if I’m bored one day I’ll go through archives… but there are some sites that are genuinely enjoyable.

My opinion on this matter? (Well KillKrazy’s opinion actually, but one that I share.) Click here.

Kill? You were ununsettlingly correct in that prediction you made about E/N sites.

It is part of being American. Its part of being free. Its called the 2nd Ammendment to our Constitution. “…shall have the right to keep and bear arms.”

These kids were going to blow up their school and kill plenty of kids whether they had guns or not. You can’t stop crazy people from doing crazy things without limiting the actions of everybody. And I’m not willing to sacrifice my daughter’s freedom for her safety. Especially when banning guns will not make her any more safe from freaks like the kids in Colorado.

As linked on Shlonglor’s site, a school shooting happened in Canada. I guess you can’t stop psychos from doing crazy things, but you can limit how often these events occur (as I said… gun control didn’t stop the Port Arthur Massacre which eclipses the Columbine death toll twofold). However — One (copycat?) shooting in Canada compared to the three of four that happened in the US in the last year, though?

Tuckeroos. Damn that stereotypical name. It’s some firm in Vancouver importing Aussie food – chocolates, candy and biscuits, which has been conveniently translated to “cookies” for you yanks. Mmmm Tim Tams. But what the hell are Pollywaffles??

People ask all the time .. “Ozzie food ?..chocolate ? whats so good about it ? Its not like Australia is known for its food!“. What people dont know is that Australians have a very large sweet tooth.

Okay well someone’s certainly been brainwashed by saying the pledge of allegiance every morning for 13 years…. There IS a difference between banning guns and banning free speech. A BIG difference. I guess though you see the word “ban” and the ol’ uncle sam gene kicks in. You say that things like music, videogames, movies influenced the kids to do wrong. And I totally agree we should not ban these things. You are right. People get influenced in different ways, and its ridiculous to think we should ban a certain movie or rock music which mentions death because it happened to affect certain people. However you lumped guns in there with that list: “Just because some psycho’s are influenced negatively by some movies, music or guns is NOT A VALID REASON to limit everyone’s access to those materials.” You think the child killers are “influenced” by guns???? What does that even mean?? Guns arent an influence, they are how the influences are acted upon.”Psychos” are influenced by things in society (which we should not ban) and these influences come to fruition in blowing people away with GUNS. If the guns were NOT THERE there would be a lower chance of them managing to kill people. Of course people will always be able to get guns if they really want them, but it will be harder for teens (ie: they cant take it out of their dad’s closet) who are acting on all the afore mentioned influences. We cannot ban free speech, types of music or games, you are right. Not all will react to these things so irrationally. But when an object which is designed to kill is used by these people, why not remove that object from society? You call guns “materials” we should all have access to. You speak of guns like they are books in Nazi Germany… like everyone has a right to have a gun as if it is part of being an american or something. Guns are designed to KILL. Sure some people hunt with them or kill sick cows with them, but their primary purpose is to MURDER. Why does “liberty” under your definition include the right to have the ability to murder? The right to risk having a kid blow his head off with dad’s gun which is meant to protect the family? The right to risk DEATH? If you ask me the FREEDOM TO WALK INTO A SCHOOL AND NOT GET BLOWN AWAY or the FREEDOM TO NOT HAVE TO SPEND THE DAY CRYING BECAUSE YOU ARE WORRIED ABOUT YOUR CHILDREN AT SCHOOL is a far greater liberty than the freedom to own a gun. Even if banning guns only stops one kid getting to a gun, and saves one life, or stops one accident it is worth it. And cheers to Inferno for pointing out the difference between Australia and the US. We both have marylin manson, we both have Doom, we both have Childs Play movies… but Australia has banned guns… and we have an almost nonexistent rate of death by automatic weapons. So I guess I want this argument to stop now. You have your view Ill have mine (and we are clogging up the journal). All i am saying is look at what freedom truly is. Dont confuse owning guns with some glorious cause. Maybe that pledge will be shaken out of you when the next 25 kids get killed, and you’ll realise you may have saved them if you had taken guns out of society.Phil

Remember the infamous blue screen crash of Windows 98 at Comdex last year? Of course, huh?But the real question that’s been on everyone’s minds is – what happened the poor guy who had to take the crash? “Was he taken out the back and shot, or given a 10 minute head start before the dogs were unleashed? Whatever did happen to the poor guy who crashed Bill Gates’s computer in front of the TV cameras?” That question was answered at Comdex 99, which started Monday. The guy’s name is Chris Capossela. Find out about it in The Australian or at MSNBC.

I’m not gonna touch the trickle down theory, thats another subject. But there is no difference between the right to have guns and the right to free speech, etc. Special interest groups here want to ban guns because they blame them, at least in part, for this horrid incident, and it sounds like you agree. Well, other special interest groups here are clamoring about the music these kids listened to, the video games they played, and the movies they watched. So after we ban guns because of this, when it happens again, the music will be next to be banned, then after the next incident, the video games. You are very shortsighted if you can’t see what these type of people want to do. They want to control what all people, not just kids, see, hear, play with, and say. They are the reason we have such political correctness in this country that you can get sued for making a joke about fat people. Just because some psycho’s are influenced negatively by some movies, music or guns is! NOT A VALID REASON to limit everyone’s access to those materials. God help those of you who don’t value your freedoms.

I’ve been careful not to say that gun control is a miracle cure, but it is something that should be considered. How do you explain why all this is happening in the US and nowhere else? People have equal exposure to music, video games and movies Aust/Canada/UK as they do in the US. Hmm… So what’s different?

The Octopus’s Garden has interpretations of various songs. It’s got a line by line analysis of “American Pie”, “We didn’t Start the Fire”, a pretty detailed analysis of the Beatles’ “Free as a Bird” video, as well as other stuff. Pretty interesting stuff.

Finally got around to seeing the Matrix, and yes it’s pretty damn awesome (surprise surprise, huh?). As long as you stay with the plot – if you didn’t, go watch it again – but for me eveything made sense. It was really interesting because I’ve been in many casual conversations about philosophical stuff and it’s the first time I’ve seen sci-fi-ish existentialism in a movie (no one exists in the created world, everything is part of a dream – or in the sci-fi version – you are living in a computer program, everything around is a set of code, and you can’t break out of this generated world). I reckon they mixed the action (check out the SFX!) with the philosophical stuff really well. I could talk for ages on it (but I won’t :). It’s the best movie I’ve seen this year.

(Of course, everyone has already got it tattooed into their heads that Star Wars will be the best movie this year. No one will admit it sucked even if they’re hung up by the balls. There’s prejudice for you.)

Just thought I’d clue you in to why Americans won’t give up liberties as suggested by one of your readers. To be consice, its because the special interest groups here (gun lobby, abotion lobby, gay rights, etc) are just Chinese water torture waiting to happen. Taken individually, drops of water, or small liberties taken away are insignificant. One by one, they keep falling, till one day you wake up with a big fucking hole in your forehead where your freedom used to be. How’s that for an analogy.

schlyer

——————

I dont agree that all liberties will magically domino away because you bring in a new law or set of laws. This to me is as illogical as Reagans “trickle down” economic principle, and is indicative of the american desire to push everything they desire to be true into a set formula so they feel their ideals of freedom and liberty actually have some base. And Inferno was right: gun laws are one thing, freedom of speach, press, religion etc… are another. Liberty is being free. And if you ask me imposing gun laws will make america more liberated. kids will be FREE to go to schools withour fear. FREE not to watch theyre friends gunned down. Parents will be FREE not to fear for their kids lives each day… that is freedom. Part of liberty is safety. And again ill say gunlaws are not teh complete answer or even a large part of it, but they are A part. It scares me that americans put the friggin pledge of allegiance crap b4 theyre youth’s lives. If you ask me, saving lives is more imp!ortant than any manmade ideology, and its sad so many dont feel the same.“It hurts when you discover what you thought was freedom was just greed” -Bono

Phil (26/4)

Interesting analogy, but I don’t agree with it. What this is implying is that if one SIG gives up their lobbied liberty, this will cause an eventual chain reaction that will take out the other SIGs. I guess the difference between something like the gun lobby and, say, abortion or euthanasia, is that abortion and such issues are much more morally inclined – thus open to more debate and personal opinion. But with the gun debate, there are two sides. There’s the “liberty” of being able to carry arms. Then there’s those that speak out against guns because they have the side effect of aiding events such as the Columbine Shooting. Which side is right is clear cut – obviously lives are worth more than being able to carry guns. The thing is that there is no direct evidence that lack of gun control plays a large role in these events. Yet, why do things like this never happen in countries like the UK, Canada or Australia, who do have gun control laws in place? I think this fact is pretty convincing that the “gun culture” did play a fairly large part in causing school shootings.

But the gun lobby is a powerful political force in the US. No, it’s much easier to blame recreational culture. I mean, a freak such as Marilyn Manson is a much easier target.

This week’s attack inspired a copycat act by teen-agers on Wednesday, although there were no weapons involved. Four teens were charged with trespassing in Colorado Springs after arriving at a school in trench coats and masks.

Hello,I looked at lots of EN sites and what they have to say about this guns thing. Most of the yanks seem to be saying that guns arent the cause so dont pass laws banning them, because then we wouldnt be living in LIBERTY. Sure bad parenting is a huge cause, and sure guns will always be available to those who really want them but if theyre not in homes and are illegal they are going to be much harder for kids to obtain. Sure the freak who has decided he must kill 25 will still get one.. but theyre wont be gun accidents in homes and young children wont be brought up around them. Some guy on frustrated said that guns are designed to kill, and the fact that they can also be used for sport hunting does not warrant theyre existence in a peaceful society. Thats brilliant. I mean guns will always be around. But Americans need to learn that passing an apparently ‘strict’ law to save lives may be a curtailment of one liberty (is it a liberty we wanto oto have anyway?), but this DOES NOT MEAN America will suddenly become a totalitarian evil world of zero freedom. Another guy at frustrated said he’d rather live in a free world and get shot by a school kid at 30 than live in a “PLASTIC” world of no freedom till he was 90. Frigging Americans. Geez, talk about blindly clinging to some lofty ideal of “liberty”…. banning guns will SAVE A FEW LIVES. It wont solve the poblem but it will SAVE LIVES. SO DO IT. Looking at Australia, you can see how well it has worked. No guns, no recent mass automatic weapon killings, and what the f…??? We’re not A PLASTIC TOTALITARIAN SOCIETY YET??? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN????? (total sarcasm). It’s like [my history teacher] said… “America is the greatest country in the world… until every 70-100 years when it self-destructs (civil war, prohibition etc) because it can no longer survive by living on the lies it has created”

Phil

Quite a shot at the US there. 100% agreement, though.

I’d like to add some arguments to three of your observations. In fact guns can be obtained more easily in the USA than in any other industrialised country. The chances in the US of being killed by gunfire for under 15 year old’s is as high as in the 20 next industrialised countries COMBINED! Secondly the age old argument of the NRA and the like that guns don’t kill but people (duh!), just tells us, that people shouldn’t have guns, not that guns shouldn’t have people. Thirdly there will no ban on guns, because men love them, the industry wants men to need them and if some thousands get shot for that, fuck it. I mean let’s be honest, who cares so much as to discard their GUNS, of all things. No gun owner thinks, he would do such a thing.

So lean back and wait for the next catastrophy, somebody should have to told these people that violence is as american as apple pie. Whoops, H.R. Brown already did!

yours,finn

How much is a life worth? Or is the right to bear arms such a fundamental right as to be constitutional (and thus seemingly immutable)? They might as well include a “right to bear arms” clause in human rights legislation.

… a photo of a Blizzard Figurine (uhm… I mean Alien Master), a whole bunch of songs I’ve never heard of, and a single dick joke later…

Means Watch the World Die has just closed its first year with a celebratory post every bit as witty, biting and amusing as ever. Happy B’day to KillKrazy‘s Web Site. Go check out his 1st anniversary post!

No doubt you’ve heard about this shocking news already. News coverage has been going on for the past 24 hours. When I was on the way to the train station this morning, reports over the radio said that gunmen had “held up” a school in Denver. Details were still sketchy, but when I came back from uni, I found out everything soon enough. If you haven’t heard about this, check out CNN’s coverage, or the Denver Post (or any other news site). There… it’s on TV right now. And there it is on another channel…

As a result of these events, as always, multiple issues have been raised – all with the aim of finding the cause of this massacre.

Firstly there’s the issue of gun control. I do believe that this was a “cause”. Maybe not a big a cause as some make it out to be, but still it is a cause. In Australia guns are for the most part, illegal. I do not recall a school shooting ever happening in Australia. Gun control in Australia has made firearms more inaccessible. Families don’t keep guns in their homes. The only time I ever used a firearm was in cadets, and never since then. Ahhh but of course this doesn’t mean it’s impossible to obtain these weapons. Think back to Martin Bryant and the Port Arthur massacre. What Australia’s gun control has done, however, is create a culture in which guns are far less commonplace and have never been a problem for schools (not yet, anyway). Sure you can still get guns. Sure it’s relatively easy to make homemade explosives (I had friends playing around with a pretty potent 5″ homemade spud gun last year). But it’s more difficult in Australia. If you asked me where I could buy a gun, I would have no idea. But I’m hypothesising that most Americans would know where to go. So, it’s a culture thing.

Secondly, there’s the issue of “external forces”. Video games and stuff. Blah blah. I don’t hold this to be a really valid reason. Maybe in some cases, where the perpetrator may have been mentally imbalanced, but in this case the guys were described as being reasonably intelligent. They knew what they were doing. If there was an external force, it was their morbid following of Hitler what he stood for. And that is a following that is not as commonplace as the number of people that watch violent movies, or play computer games.

Thirdly, the issue of parenting has been raised. I can’t really comment on this… all families are different. I don’t know how hard it is for parents to notice something is wrong with their kid. I’m guessing that, however, if your kid starts dressing in black, develops an addiction for WW2 stuff, and joins a group called the “Trench Coat Mafia” you’d suspect something. But of course, you still wouldn’t expect something of this magnitude to happen.

Finally there’s the deal about punishment. This argument is one that I feel is quite valid. Bear with me for a sec… What feels ominous about this whole thing is that we’re talking about teenagers here. It’s shocking isn’t it? … Or is it? Also on the news today were two girls, 14 and 16, charged with stabbing and killing a man in Penrith (an Australian suburb). They’re due to be sentenced in a children’s court because to be tried as an adult you have to be 18. But that age “18” has been there for more than 20 years. Film censors have gotten “softer”, in effect exposing younger audiences to more and more graphic sex, violence and language in the theatre. This reflects society’s changing values, views and tolerance to this. However, by not lowering the age of “18” (for “adult crimes”) this loss of innocence in teens hasn’t been reflected. I think someone who’s 17 and goes and murders someone knows exactly what the hell they’re doing and should be tried as an adult. Which brings me to the issue about punishment. Stricter laws and punishments work. The stricter the laws, the more ordered society tends to be. There is, of course, the issue of how much “personal freedom” we’re willing to “give up” in exchange for tougher penalties and less crime. The question is – which do we prefer? Let me phrase it this way:

Is it really that much of an insult to bring metal detectors and security guards into schools? So much of an insult that people would rather have a school shooting instead? (“I’d never have thought it would have happened at our school!” sounds familiar enough). It’s like the bouncer who asks someone who is over 18 for their ID. They’re not asking to insult you (well… not in most cases), they’re just making sure you’re not one of the bad apples breaking the law.

The only problem is, the two gunmen suicided. They took the easy way out… no consequences… no accountability. No way for society to voice their disgust for them, at them. Tougher punishments wouldn’t have mattered diddly-squat in this tragedy.

I understand that this post is convoluted. I’m not writing an essay so I didn’t make a plan – ideas just tumbled out of my head and I put them down in the order they plopped out. Got a response? Mail me. Time to read what everyone else has been saying…

forgo Daily posted a copy of The Sunscreen Song on his site (MP3, 16kBps degraded quality, however). So now you can get bothThe Sunscreen Song (Quindon Tarver version) and Not The Sunscreen Song (John Safran version). Although if you’re not Australian, you probably won’t get a few of the things said in Not The Sunscreen Song (“Forget Adelaide… it’s a hole.”). I can’t remember if the Safran version is zipped, or merely renamed. So if you can’t seem to unzip it, just rename it to have an mp3 extension.

UPDATE: I found a full quality MP3 of The Sunscreen Song (aka Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)). 6 Megs or so, but it’s definitely worth it :).

ERG-MAD sent me a message how his site wasn’t new (see e/n site listings below), which would be absolutely correct. I guess I have to clarify that everything I list as “new” is new to me – most of the sites may have already been up for months before I came across them.

Incidentally, I also updated the sidebar. Dethstryk has closed his personal site, claiming he needs to get his life back. He then promptly became a poster on Roosh’s site :). It’s the E/N compulsion theory at work again. End of Nothing closed too due to lack of motivation.

Varsity – I don’t know about anywhere else, but here in the US, most high schools (grades 9 to 12, usually) have 2 or three levels of sports, depending on how big they are. Varsity is the best, most competitive level, only for 11th and 12th grade students, or 9th and 10th grades who are very good. Usually there’s also a JV level, or Junior Varsity, for younger students.< P>

Got this from sonic, who’s been going through the archives and is now on his way to California.P>

hey… cache is pronounced “cash”… and queue is pronounced “q” In my tech school class when we’d learn about print queues (ohh real hard stuff i know), some people would pronounce it with a Y at the end..

About my comments on the rating of Cruel Intentions and Varsity Blues. Varsity Blues had the implications of oral sex, followed by a neck cracking. And drug use (or whatever that stuff was they were trying to inject into the leg). It managed to slip by with an M. That’s got me confused. If anything they both should be MA, or even both M.

sonic junkie (now Techno Weenie?), fresh from half a year or so of military training is back! If you don’t know him, he used to run an e/n site called Cranial Disorder. Now he’s back with the site Techno Weenie. There must be something compelling about maintaining an e/n site… it’s like the slogan for Pringles. Even after a few months in the air force. Anyway, go visit it!

Well as you’ve heard by now, Anwar Ibrahim (former deputy PM of Malaysia) has been sentenced to 6 years jail. I think it’s pretty damn clear now that the Malaysian judicial system is well and truly corrupt. I still can’t work out what he was sentenced for (there wasn’t any backing for the sexual allegations) but I do know that it was three times longer than what is normally given out.

It’s a chick flick, but not a chick’s flick. Gettit? Contrary to prior impressions, this film actually did have a satisfactory plot to carry the visuals through :). This film was entertaining, no doubt about that. Not shocking at all, actually. Nothing reeeeally revealing. Somehow I expected a lot more stuff from an MA movie. Hey, Varsity Blues was M and it had that 2 minute “sex education” scene :). In my opinion, the ratings should have been switched for both films. Varsity Blues was also quite enjoyable. Stereotypical, yes (black guy, hero guy, fat guy, dumb guy, girls etc.). Good to watch when everything else has been seen. And I still don’t know the definition of “Varsity”.

They pay you 50c for every hour you’re on the web up to a max of 40 hours a month (I think it’s 40…). They place adverts on your desktop that can be minimised. In a spate of greed, I signed up for it. I feel dirty already. What I will not do, however, is send spam e-mail or a mass ICQ post trying to get ppl to join. My referral # is AWF-825, if you’re feeling generous. Link.

If there’s one thing about politics, it’s that, you’re never going to persuade someone over to your point of view if they had an opposing one in the first place. Think back. When was the last time you got someone to give in to you in an argument over some political, religious or social issue? The best you can hope to do is sway people who haven’t made up their mind already. I am, of course, referring to the frenzied rhetoric hurtling back and forth between him and her (and their supporters) a couple days back. So why do we engage in this? Pride, and the reason that it feels cathartic to have your say. (Cathartic is a pretentious word, but you can think of it as a feeling of relief… like when you’re busting to go piss, and you finally let it out.)

One thing about “Shlongites”. I don’t necessarily think that it is Shlonglor that has “brainwashed” all his readers into following him. Perhaps it’s because his readers agree with his points of view in the first place, that they like his page. After all, you’re more inclined to like someone if they agree with you or you agree with them. Why keep visiting a page which constantly pisses you off? (Well, certainly not Frus, who removed his link).

People are using the soapbox like it’s (I assume) a search engine. Ok, so you might make the mistake once. But typing “florida” into the box twice can only mean a certain measure of stupidity being displayed.

… and he didn’t tell me. KillKrazy’s headed back into the frey with another incarnation of WTWD, which, I fear, is more twisted and cutting than ever before. But hey, that’s why people visit it, right? Go there for your daily fix of cutting-edge cynicism. No more Xoom – just the personal space bundled with his ISP account.

Frustrated.org has been listed on EBG for more than a while. Only occurred to me just then that it should be on the sidebar. I do believe it’s the only female webmaster (webmistress?) on that lengthy site listing.

Where I live, cable only just came to town (or village, as some would call it :). So, I don’t get CNN and there’s not a terrific amount of coverage on Kosovo. If you only started paying attention to the news when the US started bombing, chances are you won’t know what the background to the whole situation is. I didn’t know until a couple days ago. Since the news doesn’t tend to explain the Kosovo conflict’s background, and if you missed the start of it, you might want to know about it. If you already know about it (more than likely if you’re American), skip this post or correct me where I’m wrong.

From my basic understanding, Kosovo is a province of Serbia. It is comprised of a majority of Albanians (from neighbouring Albania) and a minority of Serbians. Kosovo is something of a “heartland” to Serbians. Since around ten years ago, a group called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has been trying to gain independence and autonomy for Kosovo, for the Albanians. All of a sudden, the KLA recently began killing Serb policemen and others who collaborated with the Serbs. They also established areas from which Serbs were driven entirely. Tensions escalate until Slobodan Milosevic, who leads Serbia and Yugoslavia, decided to start ejecting the entire Albanian population from Kosovo. Police and other Serbian military started evicting Albanians from their houses and deported them from Serbia to neighbouring countries.

Here’s where NATO came in. Apparently “concerned” by the flow of refugees and injustice of what Milosevic was doing, they urged him to stop. He didn’t. Talks begin in France (where a peace plan called the Rambouillet accord was drafted up). NATO proposed to reintroduce ejected Albanians back into Kosovo under the watch of NATO peacekeeping forces. The talks fail, Milosevic rejecting this idea. Finally, after diplomacy has failed, NATO begins airstrikes on March 24.

So what’s the controversy surrounding this situation? While it is fairly evident that what Milosevic is doing is wrong, the way NATO planned to resolve the situation is considered wrong. Air strikes on Serb military targets and government buildings (via an array of cruise missiles and aircraft) have been designed to pressure Milosevic into ceasing. However, the problem lies with the ground forces and “the men with ski masks” coming in the night and turning Albanians out of their houses. Bombing tanks and buildings is regarded as irrelevant and unnecessary (what has bombing of tanks got to do? Tanks aren’t herding Albanians towards the border). Of course, to directly attack the problem would involve sending in ground troops. Hah. If the US were to do that, and a bunch of US soldiers were killed, the public reaction would be horrendous. Even the B2 strike bombers aren’t landed on European soil – they take off, let loose their bombs, and don’t land until they reach the US again. At over $2 billion, if the US were to lose one of these planes, the American public would not be impressed. NATO is unable to attack the problem directly, for fear of public reprisal, but the way they’re going about it currently is still not acceptable. Furthermore, by the time the situation improves, there might not be anymore Albanians in Kosovo left! At the current rate of migration, Kosovo will be “Albanian-less” within a couple of weeks.

Secondly, there’s the questionable intentions of NATO. NATO bypassed the UN. Russia opposes what they’re doing and would have vetoed it had they gone through the UN. Could this be some attempt at humiliating Russia? Russia has strong ties with Serbia and can’t very well watch NATO bomb it. But that’s all it can do. So they mobilised a couple regiments and a few planes to show their disapproval. But they can’t use them. I think NATO also wants to strengthen ties with Albania or something. So it’s all very political.

That’s what I understand of the situation. A timeline of events is available at CNN. Have I stuffed up above? Have I shown my ignorance? Mail me for corrections.

What is the big deal???? It’s a Word macro virus. It uses the local phonebook to send mail with an infected file to 50 other people. What’s so new that it deserves such widespread and exhaustive media coverage? In the long and illustrious history of virii, why has the damn media all of a sudden decided to pick up on this one virus? Even in the Kosovo news – where they noted that the NATO web site was being harassed and how NATO was being flooded with e-mails with attached macro virii – they had to throw in the line which read something like, “It is not known whether these macro virii are the ‘Melissa Virus’ that recently caused widespread problems in computer systems globally.” Sheesh. Get over it. I tell you, the media makes people paranoid when they should only be cautious.

I just got an e-mail from Scoobie (of the recently shut down SW/TS) regarding how one of the sites listed on my sidebar allegedly ripped his layout off. While I’m not in a position to say if this is true or not, because the frames layout SW/TS uses is fairly generic, this does give me the chance to rant on plagiarism. Why do people kick up such a fuss if they get their page layout ripped off? I mean, it doesn’t sound like a big deal does it?

People with personal sites spend a great deal of their spare time constructing and maintaining them. They don’t get anything tangible for their efforts. All satisfaction is derived from interaction with the “net community” and the enjoyment of creating something – just as a painter (amateur or otherwise) finishes off a painting. The site’s layout and content is all they have to show for their hours slaving away at the keyboard, unable to work up the willpower to go outside and get some sunlight due to the impulse that thumps in the brain saying, “Update! Update!”. So if you rip off a layout that someone has made, or copy and paste (without attributing credit) news stories that may have taken time to compile, you’re taking the only thing a webmaster has. That is why it’s treated so seriously.

Not that I’m singling Roosh.net out in particular, but even something like Soljah’s post on “where Easter eggs come from” can annoy. It’s unlikely that he found that pic, in an obscure corner of the net, himself. It’s more likely that it came from Shlonglor’s site. If you nab a link from another site, credit it. At least Shlonglor linked to the site that had the pic, not just copied it to his web space.

forgo (daily). Metanews. E/N. Journal. Whatever. It’s a new addition to the sidebar. I either got this link from Roosh or Geeklife… can’t remember. News with Screw with the System is that it *may* be back. These journal sites are like an addiction… you can try going cold turkey but it doesn’t feel right.

Murphy’s Law at its worst. While trying to install an obstinate CD Writer and SCSI card, my computer’s power supply blew up. I grabbed one from the old computer, but now I’ve got hardware conflicts left right and centre. Seems like there’s not enough IRQs for all those PCI cards in there. Anyway I’m going to be out of action for a while. “Plug and play” my ass.

This is hearye.org. It is maintained by Stuart Loh (contact me). This blog has been continuously maintained since 1998, so you might like to read about it. I also create other stuff from time to time. Post no bills.Copyright notice. All content on this blog created by me is licensed under these CC license terms, unless otherwise
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